Infinite Crisis #3

History

Infinite Crisis was announced in March 2005 as a direct sequel to DC's landmark 1985 series Crisis on Infinite Earths, with DC executive editor Dan DiDio noting it had been seeded in DC storytelling for roughly two years prior. The seven-issue miniseries was written by Geoff Johns with pencil art shared across the run by Phil Jimenez and George Pérez (both of whom worked on issue #3), with inking by Andy Lanning, Wayne Faucher, and Norm Rapmund. The character of Jaime Reyes was conceived by Keith Giffen and John Rogers (who would write his subsequent solo series) and visualized by artist Cully Hamner, though his cameo appearance in this issue was rendered by the main series art team rather than Hamner. The hardcover collection of all seven issues, published later, included revised dialogue and new art pages, with an afterword explaining some of the alterations.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Jaime Reyes, the third Blue Beetle — a Mexican-American teenager from El Paso, Texas — depicted out of costume finding the Blue Beetle scarab (cover date February 2006, on-sale December 14, 2005).
• Jaime Reyes was created by Keith Giffen, John Rogers, and Cully Hamner; he would debut in full costume two issues later in Infinite Crisis #5 and headline his own monthly series beginning May 2006.
• Written by Geoff Johns; pencilled by both Phil Jimenez and George Pérez; inked by Andy Lanning, Wayne Faucher, and Norm Rapmund — continuing the rotating art team format of the event series.
• The issue's title is 'Divine Intervention'; it was published as part of the seven-issue Infinite Crisis limited series (December 2005 – June 2006), DC's sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths.
• Key story beat: Kal-L (Earth-Two Superman) confronts Batman in the Batcave and offers him the life he never had; Batman's Kryptonite ring fails against Kal-L because the Kryptonite is not native to Kal-L's dimension, and Kal-L destroys it with his heat vision.
• Firestorm (Jason Rusch fused with best friend Mick Wong) is gravely wounded during Donna Troy's deep-space mission; Martin Stein — revealed to have been alive in space as the Elemental Firestorm — rescues Jason but cannot save Mick, setting up the permanent Rusch–Stein Firestorm partnership.
• The issue also depicts the Amazons being overwhelmed by OMACs on Themyscira and the Spectre attacking Atlantis, advancing multiple simultaneous crisis fronts across the DCU.
• DC released the issue with a 50/50 variant split: a Jim Lee/Sandra Hope cover (featuring Batman, Kal-L, and the Earth-Two Wayne family including Helena Wayne) and a George Pérez cover; a second-printing Jim Lee sketch cover and a newsstand edition also exist. The issue was adapted in Greg Cox's October 2006 novelization of the series.

Cast · 13 characters

Full credits

Variants (4)